Monday, July 31, 2006

Friday, July 28, 2006

Isn't this photograph stunning? It's called Port Davey and was taken by Hobart photographer, Geoffrey Lea and won landscape photograph of 2006. I did have it set as wallpaper but it's too powerful to look at that closely. There are other photographs by him at http://www.leatherwoodonline.com which is a marvellous site for all things Tasmanian. While you're there check out the B&B's and the regional recipes and restaurants.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

I'm watching two doves going at it while balancing on top of the fence. (jealous. much. on top of a fence.)

The letterbox has cockroaches again, brown ones though, Aussie. The CIA has taken theirs home.

The Rodent is having a birthday. He's ONLY 67. Are they sure about that?

I mean he's been around since the Andes were a footstep.

How dare he have a birthday in my birthday month anyway.

Phillip Ruddick (I know how to spell) wants to censor Television and books, specifically Big Brother and Islamic 'How to bomb yourself to heaven' books. I can't make out which one he thinks is terrorism.

I am officially getting old. I admit it. I used to be able to flip a queen-size mattress with one hand. This morning it took me an hour, a lot a swearing and a seismic event when I finally let it drop.

Are you sure the batsard (I know how to spell) is only 67?

In 33 years he'll be one hundred years old. He'll still be here, I just know it. I bet Captain Smirk does too.

The Jenolan Caves are 340 million years old. I bet he started them off by digging in his sandpit.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Sunday, July 23, 2006

What handbag? I have a collection of huge over the shoulder calico bags. I bought the first two from GreenPeace and have replicated them ever since. I have been known to wipe out small children by swinging round too fast with no warning. A Sherpa would have trouble carrying these bags after I've been shopping.So I have a plastic envelope containing pens and pencils and my hand made dictionary of science terms that I always forget.Another plastic envelope with bills, scripts, bus timetables, train timetables and various plastic eating items plus sugar quills that fall into my bag at those little coffee places.Mobile phone, which I'm always forgetting to charge but it's handy for the time since my watch died.Make-up purse with tiny hair brush, lipgloss and teeny tiny mirror because I don't care to see my entire face in daylight, bits of it will do.My purse containing the twenty or so cards essential for everyday life plus mum's cards and Power of Attorney so I can use them. Sometimes the purse even has money in it. (not often)

IN MY FRIDGE.This was good for a chortle and a quick ignore of the swamp in the bottom. The cat's fresh carton of whole milk.My carton of uht skim milk because he won't have a bar of it.Nimbin CheeseLovely big fresh applesTofu

IN MY CLOSET (how American) WARDROBE (Aussie)Stash of dress fabricsHandbagsCovered boxes containing my tiaras and headdresses from strange parties. I'm not kidding, photos were taken and will be posted.Summer shoes neatly stacked in the shoe container. (winter shoes all over the bedroom)Dresses, winter up one end, summer up the other and autumn/spring collection in the middle.My cupboards are the only tidy things in this house. I've had seagulls walk in through the front door looking for the tip.

IN MY BATHROOM CABINET.BandAids, lots. Never buy the clear ones, you can never see to peel the buggers off. Glow in the dark ones are fun except if you forget and look at your foot in the dark.Betadine antiseptic. I decant it from 44 gallon drums. It works, true dinks, I haven't lost a limb yet.Dead toothbrushes. Well for 95 cents they don't last forever but I just can't throw them away. They are great for cleaning the tile grout when I get to it, sometime in the next year or two.Clarins face creams. I have a permanent lay-by at my chemist for these when the specials come out. I'd like to say I look like Linda Evangalista but I'd be struck by lightning for a lie that big.Hair Dye or rather colour enhancement for my NATURAL colour and it's been so long since I saw my natural colour this really could be my NATURAL copper hair colour.

I hate these sort of memes. I usually have a blind spot about things that aren't fixed up around the house and now they're hitting me in the face everywhere I look. It will take a tremendous effort but I will resist the temptation to leave the computer and actually do housework.

"Malaysia's foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, the chairman of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean), said the group's fortunes were being held hostage by Burma, which has refused to initiate a transition to democracy despite repeated pledges to do so."Asean now has reached a stage where it is not possible to defend its member when that member is not making an attempt to cooperate," Mr Syed Hamid said at a conference of Asean legislators."

I can't see China or India taking much notice of this considering their investments in Burma but it's worth bringing the Junta to the world's attention. There is a dirty list of companies that invest or operate in Burma including Travel Agencies. A lot of the tourist accommodation was built by child slave labour and Burmese activists have asked that tourists not visit the country and contribute to the Junta's deep pockets. The Junta also controls the heroin trade and the gem mines. Don't buy Burmese rubies.

I am in two minds about the tourist trade however. If you're going to sit in an exclusive resort and never venture out except in convoy with the other exclusive resort visitors then I'd suggest you stay home. But if you're able to wander around the country and talk, with discretion, to the Burmese people then by all means go. Have a good look around, talk to students, people in the street, in the villages then bring the stories back. This country is so closed that offers of help during the aftermath of the tsunami were rejected. As always, in countries like Burma, don't act the ugly Australian abroad.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

You can keep your cat and dog blogging, I've got a dinosaur and he's Australian. Meet Umoonasaurus who swam in the inland sea of Australia abut 115 million years ago. He belonged to a group of meat-eating marine animals known as plesiosaurs.This new species has been identified using fossils of 30 individuals including seven partial skeletons. Some from old collections and recent excavations.The best thing about these fossils is that a lot of the material is found in opal mines and the fossils have been opalized into beautiful greens and blues.He's been named after Umoona, the aboriginal name for the South Australia region where the most complete Umoonasaurus skeleton was found complete with a gut full of small fish.

He's not pretty and I can't quite put my finger on who he reminds me of, someone in Parliament, I'm sure it'll come to me.

I have been listening to some tapes on loan from my sister. My sister, the gambling, drinking and swearing sister. She believes in Angels. She despises religion, can't be bothered wondering if there's a God, unless he's the God of Horseracing but she believes in Angels.

She says it's a fairly recent thing. Thirty years of nursing, mostly older people, has led her to a point where she can't explain some of her experiences in scientific terms. So she began to study the phenomenon of Angels and why they feature in every major religion. Every belief system has it's beings of light and darkness even if they're not called Angels.

According to this latest Angel tape, we don't just have one to help us, we have a mob of them. We might have one particular guide for the every day stuff but for the big decisions we can be surrounded by a think tank of waving ethereal winged beings. They are there to guide us when we ask, to gently nudge us in the right direction if we're undecided.

This is all too much lightness for my dark celtic soul. So I've given my lot the weekend off. I've told half of them to go and wrap their wings around children in peril. The other half have really got their work cut out. Their job is to sit on the shoulders of the so-called leaders of the world and whisper constantly, you are only mortal, don't presume to be anything greater.

And this is why I was putting on a snowsuit to run to the toilet this morning. It's supposed to be raining, you know, winter and all. Gale force winds, a bit of hail, thunderstorms but freezing my bum off to have a, let's go all aussie here, snake's hiss is a bit much. Even now I'm sitting here wearing two dressing gowns and a cloak, sox and slippers. I didn't remember being this cold last year but then last year I had a cat in the study and I kept the oil heater thing on for him. I did think of getting it out for me then I remembered the bill when it came in. Dressing gowns are cheaper.

I have a Google alert for Australian Synchrotron developments and last week the synchrotron had its 'first light' run which means that every thing is aligned and functioning perfectly so the last two paragraphs of the alert were as follows:

Overseas researchers have used synchrotron technology in producing designer medicines, creating flat screen computers and extending the life of jet engines.It also has been recruited for more humble applications in developing smoother chocolate and more absorbent disposable nappies.

Smoother chocolate and disposable nappies, nothing about looking into a single living blood cell or recording the reaction of a microscopic alga when exposed to UV rays or finding a single cancer cell before it multiplies. No wonder kids aren't interested in science these days and why people can be convinced by politicians of the other side that it's a waste of money by the Bracks Government.

On the home front, there is a tomcat roaming the street. It has sprayed up the front door and up the back door and all over the stupid old dill that should have known better than to go out and try to chase it away. That's the cat not me, in case you were wondering. He has the cheek to look at me as though I'm the one on the nose. I have tried to bath him once, a long time ago and I won't be repeating that in a hurry. I still have the scars so he'll have to wash himself.

I have two new blogs for you to visit. http://madsheilamusings.blogspot.com and http://meiultravires.blogspot.com. The first is a feminist writer out west and I love what she'd like to do to men using a barnacle loofah. The second blog is written by a working mother with the strange hobby of chasing scrub turkeys, of course she's from Queensland. Go and enjoy them.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Sorry I'm not that kind of a blogger. I can't write about the killing of children. I don't care what nationality they are, they're children and they are dying. I've left comments around various blogs and that's as much as I can write. So I'll just ignore the elephant in the room that is the tragedy of the Middle East.

I am puzzled about this division between the Left and Right of politics. As I understand, the lefties are sooks and tree huggers, the righties are strong and patriotic. Stupid me, I thought we were all human beings.

I am equally as puzzled about the division between believers in God and non-believers in God. Why does it matter? The believers and the non-believers can and do kill each other. There seems to me to be as many 'Gods' as there are non-'Gods' in their strange belief systems.

While I'm puzzling, I might as well ask why loving a person of the same sex as oneself is considered not normal or evil or disgusting by lefties, righties, god-believers and non-believers?

I might as well throw this in too. Why aren't I built like Elle Mcpherson on the outside when I have the same body structure on the inside?

Monday, July 17, 2006

After the disappointment of the DaVinci Code I wondered if the Pirates would be the same but I have to say I enjoyed every minute of it. I forgot about war and politics for the afternoon and relaxed with my feet up. I'm looking forward to the third instalment with Capn Jack Sparrow.If Keira Knightly says she doesn't have an eating problem then she should go back and have a look at this film. The girl looks rounded, almost, and healthy not the scarecrow that's been parading on the red carpet lately.

Actually the film took me right back to the Saturday arvo pictures. My sister and I would walk nearly 3 miles across paddocks and roads to get to the theatre. Something that would give mothers and fathers nightmares about now. Nothing like a two tier picture theatre filled with screaming, fighting and Jaffa throwing kids, makes a soccer match look like kindergarten.

The walk used to terrify me as we would have to go through a huge paddock that had horses. My sister loved horses, I didn't. She would wait until I was in the middle of nowhere and then she would call them. Of course, they always came for her, through me.

I didn't like the realism of movies on the big screen. Even now I can remember scenes that terrified me and I hated the Three Stooges. They pulled the beautiful theatre down and built a petrol station then they pulled down the petrol station and made a road.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

This is the sweet little cat. He's sleeping on a feather cushion. He's shedding fur on an expensive mohair rug. He's letting you see two of the eleven tennis balls he has hidden behind his bed. What I can't show you or let you hear is the sight and sound of this mongrel moggie projectile vomiting cat bikkies and fur balls at 4 o'clock this morning.

I didn't get to sleep until after 3. One of those nights where nothing was comfortable and I tossed and turned but finally drifted off until that sound. I flew out of bed and opened the back door, hoping against hope that he'd make it. He was in the kitchen by now, hacking up the last fur piece so a quick look at the carpet in the lounge, all clear. Great, just the kitchen so I'll clean it up in the morning.

I go back to bed, drift off again but I need a pee. Stagger out of bed again. I never put a light on, it wakes me up too much. Bad luck this time as I put my foot squarely in the pile of regurgitated whiskettes just outside the toilet door. I can't tell you how happy I was to see it was only this when I did turn the light on, I mean it could have been a lot worse but not much. The creature has been down behind the couch all day where I can't reach him except with a 12 bore.

It's turned me off cooking for the day. I was going to make scones because I have a bottle of black cherry jam or fruit spread because it has no sugar in it. The brand is French, Charles Jacquin and I usually buy the rasberry but Safeway looks as though it's selling out the brand. I found the black cherry by chance when a little old lady (I'm a magnet for them) asked me to go to the bottom shelf for some Homebrand rubbish and there was a cache of Jacquin. These little old ladies will drive me to drink, if it's not something on the tenth shelf below the ceiling, it's something they want from the floor area. Usually I try to buy Australian but in this case Jacquin's is the best of the best. While I was on the floor Ron, I did make a quick check of the Rose's marmalade, no luck for you. Now I'm not making scones.Tomorrow I am going to see Pirates courtesy of pissed sister who put the wrong number on the Tote ticket and got the daily double, again. She sees it as divine intervention and sends me off to loll around enjoying myself in Goldclass. So next payday I won't have to make one of those difficult decisions, food or frivolity.I haven't forgotten the seriousness of the world either. A very big "Up Yours" to world renowned obstetrician Michel Odent who told a British conference that a caesarean section birth interferes with the natural production and release of the hormone oxytocin which helps a woman "fall in love" with her child. This jeopardises their chances of bonding with their babies.Thank you for the guilt trip, you twerp. Not all of us elect to have caesarean births, sometimes it's an emergency and we get enough crap from midwives and other mothers without some bloke handing out another reason to cringe. I don't like babies, they might as well be alien creatures to me. I hate people who hand me one because they cry when they see me. My own bawled every time I looked at him. You couldn't have bonded us with superglue. I get along fine with teenagers. I even manage them as kids as soon as they can talk and use a knife and fork, up until then, forget the bonding. It had nothing to do with the Caesar, it would have been the same if I had spent the time pushing him out, some of us just don't bond with the little squawkers, so there Mr. Obstetrician. I must be one of the weird mothers though, every year older he got, I loved him more. A kind of reverse bonding. What do men know!

Friday, July 14, 2006

To celebrate Bastille Day let's have some FrouFrou. Will you just look at those green eyes! I can't post the entire face, I'd be arrested, he looks too young for me to drool over. But I have ordered those eyes in a grey haired slightly more mature piece of crumpet for my birthday or Christmas, whenever he arrives.

Good old Bastille Day. Vive la Revolution. The clack of knitting needles. The clunk of falling heads. The drums of social war. The rich hiding out. The poor trying to find them. The inevitable rise of one maggot after the other til the ubermaggot, Napoleon does them all in. He could a bin a contender for sainthood but he'd rather go to war. Then he dies. History 101 in a nutshell. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Another week older and my worry lines are beginning to look like anxiety crevases.

I am staying in bed tomorrow, I mean today, with several books which I have gathered up from all over the house. I'm halfway through most of them but they're not that interesting or maybe my concentration flags easily these days.

I have taken over Mum's finances, shopping, medications and putting the rubbish bin out. I can now sign her cheques and generally fritter away her generous pension. I can tear up begging letters which sucker her in every time and especially tear up letters from the credit card bastards who tell her she's pre-approved for another $5,000 credit even though they know from her bank account that she's a pensioner.

I get to go through the pantry and re-arrange the shelves. The Brick Outhouse, being 6'4" uses the top shelf, M, being 4'11" uses the middle shelf. He doesn't look down, she can't look up. This means identical packets of everything being opened on two shelves. He can see the back of the shelves, she can only see the front. Neither look at use by dates. I don't know how they haven't died of food poisoning as some of the use bys, way at the back, are from last century. It's the same with the fridge and the freezer. I want a knighthood for the person who invents a freezer that answers when you ask "What's dying of frostbite in the left hand corner under the four opened packets of peas?" The freezer is now full of food, so it's freshly frozen food but it's this week's freshly frozen food. All nourishing, so what does she have for tea, three party pies.

I would like to bury, up to their necks in Maralinga sand, whoever decided to wrap stupid little thin pieces of cheese in plastic wrap that is impossible to open without a microscope. For company, I will put with them them, the fool who invented tri-pillows. The woman has five pillows on the bed and on top, a tri-pillow. Trying to put a cover on this is like wrestling with an anaconda. It doesn't matter what size the cover is, the pillow expands to fill it. Just for fun, I also get to iron the damn covers and I swear she has a dozen of them.

I really need tomorrow to recharge and to let the wildlife know I'm back. Lazy cat was so warm by the fire tonight that he only gave a passing glance at the two possums that were eating his cat biscuits in the kitchen. I had to get up and hoof them out. My fault, of course, I haven't been putting out their apples and bread so they've decided to eat in. It's 2.30 in the morning and now he decides to go out and patrol the yard and he'll come in and want the bowl filled.

Well that post is done, in my mind I've just written a witty and insightful disection of the political scene in Canberra so I can't help it if you're reading drivel.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

First we have an online game called Second Life. The game provides the software tools to design 3D avatars. The players can then write their own programme to create their own unique character, unique hair, clothing style, cars, boats, you name it. (That's me up there ruling my own world) But some gamers are using the the tools to add genitalia and erotic outfits for engaging in cybersex. After setting yourself up with the outfits etc. then you have to find a willing partner within Second Life's sex rooms. You can't just barge in, strangers aren't exactly welcomed even when you do find the sex rooms. Once in the virtual sex world the gamers can explore sex and fantasies which they wouldn't do in the real world. It sounds great to me, sitting at home with a shot of vodka, hair in curlers and a comfy dressing gown and indulging in 3D cybersex with someone 4000 miles away.

It didn't take long before games developers teamed up with the pr0n industry and released erotic multiplayer online games, like Red Light Centre. These games are sex oriented to appeal to players who don't know or don't have the time to create an erotic character and sex is online from the moment they sign up. The sex here stays inside the game. But a new game, Naughty America will tie cybersex to online dating. Subscribers fill in a questionnaire to set them up with suitable people and they'll use the cybersex game before meeting in real life. (My skin is crawling now)

In Second Life everything is created by the gamers and it is a second life away from reality so sex is not an official part of the game. The players like this aspect, a sort of forbidden fruit as it were which is more spontaneous than going straight into a sex oriented game.

Ren Reynolds, is a UK-based virtual world consultant and player of Second Life who says if you can get the obsessive passions of sex and game playing right, you can make a fortune.

That's what stopped me from investigating this cyber world, the cost. If I had that much money to have fun, I'd be running a permanent grogblogging floating party, better than sex.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

"I am continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." So says Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption solftware. He is far from alone in noticing that fast-growing social networking websites such as MySpace and Friendster are a snoop's dream.

New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profile of individuals.

I've seen MySpace and Friendster and if that doesn't rot the brains of the NSA, they didn't have any to start with but it shows how little the U.S. Intelligence agencies care about the Constitution they're supposed to be protecting. New Scientist doesn't say if England or Australia are moving along the same lines but since they're always 2 inches behind America, it wouldn't surprise me. I should make it easy for them. John Howard is a lying snivelling little troll who leads a diverse group of other trolls, goblins and bootlickers. When you come to get me ASIO, knock first I sleep au naturale.

I'm probably on the list anyway, I come from a long list of horsestealers and sheepknappers. The horse stealing side of the family is having a reunion and they want me to come. I had to decline, it's my day for having bamboo slivers jammed under my fingernails and the excitement of two big events in twenty-four hours would be too much for me. Besides I have this thing about being in a room with people who haven't enough brains to give themselves a headache.

Anyhow I have a computer to socialize with, I don't get germs that way. Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean my fellow bloggers, I meant normal people who have germs. I found out today that there is a new entry for the dictionary. I am officially a 'mouse potato', one who spends a great deal of time using a computer. It's better than meeting family.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

I'm back on pill duty except this time I'm doing it with colours. The first phone call of the morning goes something like...."I can't quite get the pills again." Me...."Take the fat pink one, the round orange one, the round white one and the two colours of green long one".....as I listen to fumble, fumble and counting. "I take the four at once with water, dear?" Dear resists temptation to say hemlock and listens while Mum takes them. All clear and the phone goes clunk. She rings back, "Did I hang up on you or did you hang up on me?" The day is looking good.

The bad news is it seems to be catching. I stood in front of the ATM and couldn't remember one digit of the pin number I've been using for fifteen years. I walked inside the bank and got a new one, it was easier. I can remember her 7 pin numbers and passwords and medical history back to 1975 but my four number pin is gone forever.

It's the doctors' opinion that this is acute brain syndrome, an after effect of the UTI which was much more severe than we thought. It should clear up within 2 to 3 weeks but for that remaining time she'll still have psychotic episodes but nowhere as bad as last week. The poison from this type of infection especially where the immune system is shot goes right through the body until it hits the brain. I'm beginning to wonder how many older people, in the past, have been diagnosed with dementia instead of this and gone untreated until they were quite delusional.

I'll whisper this very quietly so the gods won't hear, things are going along well for a change. Even Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD was on special for half price as was the lst season of Firefly. Now we'll see how long the average fat person can live on baked beans and fresh air.

Monday, July 03, 2006

This is Mum and her great granddaughters taken at Easter when we started the Merry-go-round.

This morning was the usual 20 minutes of pill taking instructions and she toddled off to have breakfast. Fast forward one hour when I arrive to find her sitting on her bed with a huge box of weetbix and a carton of milk. She says there's something wrong with the bowl because she can't see where the milk has gone, by bowl, she means the box which has a spoon in it. This can't be good and it isn't. I get her into the lounge room where it's warm but she can't sit in her chair because she can't remember which way to move. She can't drink her tea because she can't remember what to do with the cup. This is way beyond even a UTI infection type confusion.

I've just spent eight hours in emergency with her. She's had a brain scan, blood tests, urine tests, memory tests, co-ordination tests. The only thing they can find is slightly elevated white blood cells and a slight excess of liver enzymes. Everything else is clear, even the cut has healed completely. Nurses and doctors would wander by and ask questions. Sometimes the answer would be coherant, other times she wouldn't remember what was asked. At one stage the doctor asked if she knew who the Prime Minister was, "That thing Howard," she answered. The doctor asked who would she prefer to be Prime Minister, "Anyone but him," she said.

She's been admitted for observation. The doctor's opinion is that there is definitely something radically wrong but as yet it hasn't shown up in the ordinary tests. So she's safe for the moment. I don't have to worry about burning toast or the microwave blowing up.

She had a student doctor who asked about her previous medical history so I handed him the list. He will really have to learn to keep a poker face. Mum wanted to know why he was wearing a party hat, need I say he was Jewish. She wasn't asleep when I left but she looked very comfortable.

I walked into my sister's place and downed a can of Smirnoff Black before I realized what it was. I can't believe I can see this screen since that would usually wipe me out. I wish I had another can now, in fact I think I'll give up healthy living, it only lets you get older. I wish I could kick Aunt Selma in her bad knee. My sister has already dealt with Aunt Patty and with great delight.I don't like this year, I want another one.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

I didn't realize it was July, one of you could have pointed it out. It's the month I turn another year older and two days of it gone already.

So we have the earthquake report for June. Another 15 earthquakes for Australia and one in Victoria, west of Darriman. It was 13 kms underground and measure 3.2 on the Richter Scale. If that's anywhere near Bacchus Marsh it's only Brownie moving house.

The Basil Fawlty method of Television repair has worked and I have kicked it into life. Yea for Inspector Jericho. It had better keep going because 7 has started Stargate again with no publicity at the usual stupid hour which means I have to tape it.

Winter has started too. It's freezing, raining, cold and I have to get the cat outside with the aid of a shovel. When's spring?

Where did that seven days go? I know where the apples I cooked went, absolutely nowhere. After re-reading about them in that other post, I realized I hadn't eaten them so where were they? Still in the pot on the stove, brilliant but the possums had a lovely time with them last night.

I woke up with a headache which got worse taking 20 minutes to get Mum to take her pills. When I finally went to get out of bed I thought I might have had a slight stroke. One eye was unfocused and blurry. Mystery was solved when I put my hand up and nearly poked my eye out, the lens is now back in my glasses.

My sister and I compared notes and we are now working on the assumption that Mum is having anxiety attacks which can cause a distortion of memory. Her long term memory is fine so what she couldn't remember yesterday, she can remember today. She has anti-anxiety medication so we'll give her that for a week to see if there's any improvement. For anyone out there who thinks we're doing this on our own, we're not. These are things that she has been through before and recovered so there is a record. I even thought that it might be a form of post traumatic stress disorder since she was diagnosed and operated on so quickly that she might not have had time to come to terms with the cancer or the mastectomy. But it appears her mind is just a little behind on processing information. Like I said what she didn't remember yesterday, she could repeat to my sister today.

In a post a long long time ago, I said that Andrew Olexander was an idiot and I'm not taking that back. He said he was ousted from the Liberal party for being gay and was on the way to putting forward a private members bill for civil unions in Victoria. The papers had a great time with the fact that he has put his lover on the payroll and tax payers are footing the bill. The lover's wife of 27 years was shocked at him having an affair and devastated that it was with a man. So, far from doing some good for the gay community, he's now handing the fundies another opportunity to carry on about depraved gays and how they seduce good married men to their cause.

I have never been a fan of Big Brother but I would have watched tonight to see how Gretal tells all about the eviction of John and Ashley. Of all the times for the TV to blow a fuse it had to be now and not even a good kicking brought it to it's senses. I'll try again later because I would hate to miss Inspector Jericho on the ABC, a real pleasure on a Sunday night.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

The anti-biotics have done their job, urine is clear of infection, acute looney stage is over and even the stitches have dissolved. All good news, I wish. Mum's short term memory is all but shot. She can't remember having lunch or when to take her tablets even with me writing the time on a sheet. She's doing things two or three times because she can't remember doing them the first time. She's had a colostomy for 17 years and it's always been a barometer as to how well she is as that's the first thing she always does for herself after any illness but this afternoon she forgot how to put the bag on properly. She has always been a whizz with the phone banking system, much better than I handle it but yesterday she got really upset because they wouldn't let her call through, she had forgotten what a hash key was.

This is not the same as last week because she knows her memory has gone and it's upsetting her but only when she thinks of it and then it's gone again. For the next two weeks I will have to write down everything that she forgets, what her mood is and how long she remembers something. We have no idea if it is the cancer or the amount of medication or trauma from the surgery that's just surfacing now. My sister and I are giving her the two weeks before we have to start with the assessment system and that's not something we are looking forward to. We don't want decisions taken out of our hands and we don't want her to think we are shoving her off to some dodgy nursing home. The ideal way would be to convince her to go into respite care for a few days and be observed but I think she would resist this until she lost any resemblance of independence.

This is so hard but at the moment I can physically look after her because she can still shower herself even though I'm the one on the bottom with the towell drying her feet. That's another thing, because I'm always at the back with the towell I hadn't noticed her side on but today she turned and I was stunned at how much more weight she has dropped. She feels safe at home and she's comfortable so it's just a matter of how long I can manage. It's not fair because she's only 76 and should have more time but then I think of all those little kids dealing with this and that's not fair, at least she's had a good longish life. It is so different from my father with his cancer because he was with it right to the minute of his death. He drove his car swigging on a bottle of morphine and only gave up driving when he had no strength to use the brakes. He could have had morphine injections but he wanted his mind to be clear for as long as possible. Mum doesn't seem to have had a choice. Sorry to be so gloomy but that's what a blog is for and now that it's out in cyberspace maybe I'll be able to deal with it better.

Just to make you worry about my sanity. My father has been with us, in spirit, since this all began. There are portraits on the wall of me and my sister which have been there since we were seventeen. My picture has begun to click. The first time, my sister remarked that spirits always do that when they want to get our attention, so we laughed and asked Dad what he wanted. Check on Mum was the first thought and we found she had almost fallen out of bed. While not a strong believer, when that picture clicks, I check. My sister had a few words the other night, and propped down in front of her portrait and referred to that bloody old bat to be answered, not by a click but an almighty crack which made us both jump. She's decided to keep remarks to a inaudible muttering from now on. We could put this down to the cold or the fire being on or several other things but in all these years we've never had clicks and never a crack.